"DFI has a rep for making quality and good overclocking motherboards, and it certainly shows..."

DFI has a rep for making quality and good overclocking motherboards, and it certainly shows here. A DFI engineer has gotten stuck into DFI's P35-T2R board to see how far he could push it with a Core 2 Duo E6850 processor cooled by a cascade compressor.

After tinkering for a while he found an incredibly high sweet spot on the FSB of 660MHz, he then took the opportunity to do a SuperPi 1MB pass at 660x6, with the result being just 12.719 seconds. Following this, another lad took a shot at ramping it up even higher, managing to get a verified CPU-Z screeny of it operating with an FSB of 672.5MHz.

Most Recent Comments

Well, I sold my e6600 at the weekend, i forgot to update the bios to the latest version which would have covered me for 1333fsb support - leaving my options open.

I was leaning towards a q6600 G0 anyway, I'm pretty sure the 6850 won't work as my bios is too old (i'm annoyed i forgot to flash my bios!) so my decision was accidently made for me, q6600.

Only I only want the q6600 G0 - and getting one is nigh on impossible.

ST have B3's as do Tekheads. I just got off the phone to another place, who rang each of their suppliers for me - the consesus was 'no G0's will appear until the B3's have gone'.

I wasn't sure if he was trying to get a sale but I'm trying to hold our for our boys (ST/Tek)

I'm just [IMG]http://oldforums.overclock3d.net/oc3d_gfx/smilies/cussing.gif[/IMG][IMG]http://oldforums.overclock3d.net/oc3d_gfx/smilies/cussing.gif[/IMG][IMG]http://oldforums.overclock3d.net/oc3d_gfx/smilies/cussing.gif[/IMG][IMG]http://oldforums.overclock3d.net/oc3d_gfx/smilies/cussing.gif[/IMG]ed I have no pc at the mo!

Meh, this is what I've been saying for the past two weeks :p Expect to see G0 steppings in late August, Intel will have a backlog of older chips to get rid of first...

Mr. Smith - after chatting with Gigabyte, you may still be in luck. My DS3 Rev 1.0 has no official support for 1333mhz FSB CPUs, but the technical support staff said that it may be able, but they can't guarantee the overclock...

According to Intel's website, the G0 model has a TDP of 95W, compared to the 105W TDP of the B3 version. The "Thermal Specification" of the G0 model is about 9 degrees higher than that of the B3, and I believe that "Thermal Specification" refers to how much heat the CPU can tolerate. (Please correct me if I am wrong, Intel wasn't too clear of whether it referred to how much heat that it would produce, or how much it can withstand. I went with the latter, as it is the explanation that makes sense with the lower TDP) A higher tolerance for heat means more overclocking potential.

I am well aware of what TDP means, it is the term "Thermal Specification" that I am less clear on. It seems to indicate the maximum temperature that a CPU is able to handle constantly. If I am interpreting what Intel says correctly, then I think it is well worth it to get a G0 model for OCing, as the higher heat tolerance would allow it to be taken farther with less risk.

I am well aware of what TDP means, it is the term "Thermal Specification" that I am less clear on. It seems to indicate the maximum temperature that a CPU is able to handle constantly. If I am interpreting what Intel says correctly, then I think it is well worth it to get a G0 model for OCing, as the higher heat tolerance would allow it to be taken farther with less risk.

One obscure thing about the Intel TDP ratings is that they are actually the amount of heat that the heatsink and fan have to draw away. Significant amounts of heat can be transfered into the motherboard.

The "Thermal Specification" although quite a weird term for it, refers to the maximum safe operating temperature. This doesn't necessarily mean that you can overclock it further or more safely. With any half decent cooling you will reach the max overclock at safe voltage long before the max temperature is reached. It would appear that they have improved the actual process to prevent the dopant migration at higher temperatures.

I have been thinking about it, and I realized something. If Intel's TDP is the amount of heat that has to be dissipated, then perhaps the reason that the G0 has a lower TDP is not because it actually runs cooler, but that it can tolerate more heat. More tolerance for heat means that it doesn't need to be cooled as thoroughly, and thus the lower requirement for heat dissipation (formally known as TDP). It may take 105W of dissipation to keep a CPU at or below 62.2 C, but it would take less dissipation capacity (95W, perhaps?) to keep one at 71 C. So, I think that the lower TDP of the G0 is not a result of a cooler CPU, but instead is a result of a CPU that is designed to run at a higher temperature.

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